248 



MOHAMMEDANISM 



generally called Ifrit, Ix-ing Ililis ( ' Despair'), once 

 called Azazil, who, refusing to pay Immune to 

 Adain, was rejected by Gixl. These jinn are of a 

 grosser fabric than angels, ami subject to death. 

 They are, in almost every respect, like the Shi-dim 

 in tlie Talmud and Midrash. A further belief is 

 in certain God given Scriptures, revealed succes- 

 sively to the different prophets. Four only of the 

 original one hundred ami four sacred hooks the 

 Pentateuch, the Psalms, the Gospel, and the Koran 

 are said to have survived : the three former, 

 however, in a mutilated and falsified condition. 

 The number of prophets, sent at various times, is 

 stated variously at between two and three hundred 

 thousand, among whom 313 were apostles, and six 

 were specially commissioned to proclaim new laws 

 and dispensation!*, which abrogated the preceding 

 ones. These were Adam, Noah, Abraham, Moses, 

 Jesus, and Mohammed the last the greatest of 

 them all, and the founder of the final dispensation. 

 The belief in the resurrection and the imal judg- 

 ment is the next article of faith. The dead are 

 received in their graves by an angel announcing 

 the coming of the two examiners, Munkir and 

 Nakir, who put questions to the corpse respecting 

 his lielief in God and Mohammed, and who, in 

 accordance with the answers, either torture or 

 comfort him. Concerning the condition of the soul 

 l>etween death and the resurrection Islam has no 

 authoritative teaching. The soul is supposed, 

 according to its rank, either to enter immediately 

 into paradise (as do the prophets), or to partake, in 

 the shape of a green bird, of the delights of the 

 abode of bliss (as the martyrs) ; while, in the case 

 of common believers, it stays near the grave, or is 

 with Adam in the lowest heaven, or remains either 

 in the well of Zem-Zem or in the trumpet of the 

 resurrection. The souls of the infidels dwell in a 

 certain well in the province of Htulramaut, or, being 

 first offered to heaven, then offered to earth, and 

 rejected by l>oth, are subject to unspeakable tor- 

 tures until the day of resurrection. Concerning 

 the latter, great discrepancy reigns among the 

 Mohammedan theologians. .Mohammed himself 

 seems to have held that both soul and body will lie 

 raised ; and the ' bone Luz ' of the Jewish Haggadah 

 was by him transformed into the bone Al Ajb ( ' the 

 rump-bone '), which will remain uncorrupted till 

 the Fast day, and from which the whole body will 

 spring anew, alter a forty days' rain. Among the 

 signs by which the approach of the last day may be 

 known nearly all taken from the legendary part 

 of the Talmud and Midrash are the decay of faith 

 among men, the advancing of the meanest persons 

 to highest dignities, wars, seditions, and tumults, 

 and consequent dire distress. The sun will rise in 

 the west, the IJeast will appear, Constantinople 

 Mill he taken by the descendants of Isaac, the 

 Mahdi (n.v.) will come, the Deijal or arch iinjMistor 

 also will come and be killed by Jesus at I, ml. 

 There will further take place a war with the Jews, 

 the coming of Gog and Magog ( Yayfij and Majuj's), 

 a great smoke, an eclipse, the Mohammedans will 

 return to idolatry, the Haaba will lie destroyed by 

 the Klliiopians, leasts and inanimate things will 

 speak, and finally, a wind will sweep away the 

 souls of those who have faith. The time of the 

 resurrect ion Mohammed himself could not learn 

 from Cabiiel : it is a mystery. Three blasts will 

 announce it : that of consternation, of such terrible 

 powers that mothers shall neglect tin- babes on 

 their breasts, and that heaven and earth will melt ; 

 that of examination, which will annihilate all 

 things and being-, save paradise and hell, and their 

 inhabitants; and forty years later, that of resur- 

 rection, when all men. Mohammed first, shall have 

 iheir s,,nl- breathed into their restored liodies. and 

 will sleep in their sepulchres until the Una) doom 



has been p:uss,-,| upon them. The day of judgment, 

 lasting from one to fifty thousand years, will call 

 up angels, genii, men,' and animals. The trial 

 over, the lighteoiis will enter paradise to the right 

 hand, and the wicked will pass to the left into 

 hell; both, however, have first to go over the 

 biidge Al Sirftt, laid over the midst, of hell, and 

 liner than a hair, and sharper than the edge of a 

 sword, and beset with thorns on either side. The 

 righteous will proceed on their path with case and 

 swiftness, but the wicked will tall down headlong 

 to hell below. 



Hell is divided into seven stories or apartments, 

 respectively aaeigned to Mohammedans, Jews, Clnis- 

 tians, Sabians, Magians, idolaters, and, lowest of 

 all, the hypocrites, who, outwardly professing 

 a religion, in reality had none. The <lei 

 of pain, chiefly consisting in intense heat and 

 cold, vary; but Mohammedans and all who pro- 

 fessed the unity of (MM! will finally be released, 

 while nnl>elievers and idolators will be condemned 

 to denial punishment. Paradise is di\itied from 

 hell by a partition (Araf), in which a certain nuni- 

 l>er of half-saints will find place. The bleated, 

 destined for the abodes of eternal delight (Jannat 

 Aden ; Heb. Gan Eden ), will first drink of the Pond 

 of the Prophet, which is supplied from the rivers 

 of paradise, whiter than milk, and more odorifer- 

 ous than musk. Arrived at one of the eight gates, 

 they will l>e met by beautiful youths and angels; 

 and their degree of righteousness (pn.phcts, reli- 

 gions teachers, martyrs, lielievers) will procure for 

 them the corresponding degree of happiness. Yet, 

 according to the Mohammedan doctrine, it is not 

 a person's good works or merits that gain his 

 admittance, but solely God's mercy. The poor 

 will enter paradise live hundred years In-fore the 

 rich. The majority of the inhabitants of hell are 

 women. The various felicities which await the 

 pious (and of which there are about a hundred 

 degrees), are a wild conglomeration of Jewish, 

 Chiistian, Magian, and other fancies on the subject, 

 to which the Prophet's own exceedingly sensual 

 imagination has added largely. Feasting in t In- 

 most gorgeous and delicious variety, the most 

 costly and brilliant garments, odours and music 

 of the most ravishing nature, and above all, the 

 enjoyment of the Hflr Al Oyun, the black-eyed 

 daughters of paradise, created of pure musk, and 

 free from all the bodily weaknesses of the female 

 sex, are held out as a reward to the commonest 

 inhabitants of paradise, who will always remain in 

 the full vigour of their youth and manhood. For 

 those deserving a higher degree of recompense 

 rewards will lie prepared of a purely spiritual kind 

 i.e. the 'beholding of God's face'' by night and 

 by day. A separate abode of happineM will also 

 be reserved for women. The last of the precepts 

 of pure faith taught by Mohammedanism is the 

 full ami unconditional submission to Cod's deciei- 

 > I -Li in), and the predestination of good and evil. 

 Not only a man's lortnncs. but his deeds, and con- 

 sequently his future rcwatd or punishment, are 

 irrevocably, and thus unavoidably, pic -ordained 

 ( Fate, l.isiinh ) : a doctrine which is not, however, 

 taken literally by all Moslems, but which has no 

 doubt contributed largely to the success of Islam 

 by inspiring its champions with the gieatcst con- 

 tempt for the dangers of warfare. 



The Din, or practical part of Islam, which con- 

 tains the ritual and moral laws, inculcates as the 

 chief duties the following four : prayer, almsgiving, 

 fasting, and pilgrimage. 



Prayer, 'the key of paradise,' comprises also 

 certain religious purifications, as the most necessary 

 preparations. They are of two kinds : the Ghatl, 

 or total immersion of the body, required as a re- 

 ligious ceremony on some special occasions; and 



